The Falcon hockey team will face the Lake Superior State Lakers on Friday and Saturday night for the second time this season. The previous series between the two teams on Nov. 10-11 resulted in the Falcons taking both games, one of which in a shootout.
“I think they’ve got some really good offense,” Falcons head coach Chris Bergeron said. “Their top six forwards have been really good and they’ve got some guys on the back end that can help with the offense… Without naming just one guy, they’ve got some guys that can really play and that’s where I think this team is dangerous is their offensive potential.”
Lake Superior State comes into this weekend holding a 4-13-3 record in the WCHA, however they are just one spot out of making the playoffs. The Falcons are coming off of a sweep against the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves, another team fighting to make it into the playoffs.
“Lake Superior’s a little bit closer to that eighth spot in the playoffs than Anchorage was,” Bergeron said. “I think Lake Superior is really good at home and the message to our group is that we’ve got to start the series this Friday much more like we started at Ferris State than at Northern Michigan, at Northern in the first seven minutes were not good, but the first seven minutes at Ferris we were winning 2-0, so we’ve got to be ready to go.”
The Falcons will come into this weekend holding an 11-4-5 record in the WCHA. They currently hold the number three seed in the playoff running. Despite the differences in the standings between the two teams, the Falcons believe that both teams are in a similar situation by trying to put themselves in the best possible position going into the playoffs.
“I feel like both teams are playing meaningful games, it’s getting late in the year and that’s where we’re alike,” Bergeron said. “We’re trying to prepare a team to play a series where these games really matter and so are they.”
The team is also looking to focus on Lake Superior State’s power play unit, which holds a 17.7 percent success rate with 20 power play goals scored this year.
“They’ve got special teams that are capable,” Bergeron said. “Especially on the road, that momentum, whether it’s five on five or five on four, matters and we want to keep that momentum at least neutral as much as we can. I know that offensively and from a power play perspective, this is a dangerous team and those are two areas that we have to be focused on and those are two things that I expect from Lake Superior.”
